Gold Infographic: The Eclipsing Demand Of The East

Lifted by a continued surge in Asian gold sales, consumer demand for gold reached an all-time high in 2013 at 3,893 tonnes. Amazingly, 54% of this demand came from two places: India and China. However, it is only recently that the East has dominated global demand for the yellow metal. In this infographic, we look at India and China specifically to see why demand keeps expanding in the East.

It's been 5 years since my self-awakening...nobody I personally knew helped...it was all via the internet and primarily ZeroHedge and Turd Ferguson...I shit you not. I'm an original Watch Tower Turdite and that's when I finally was able to connect all the dots.

Props big-time to ZH and TF and then all the other people, websites, podcasts, etc. that I began to utilize which fully awakened me.

It was like Neo in the Matrix before that. I knew something was wrong. Shit was not fucking right at all. But I just didn't quite know what the fuck it was until I stumbled onto ZeroHedge and quite literally everything else started falling into place for me like the proverbial domino effect.

I'd like to say that as of 2 days ago I have awakened and converted 5 people over these years. 5.

5 people.

I've tried to speak to what's going on over all these years to most likely 100 people. I've woken up and seriously converted 5.

I'm proud of that. For all the frustration in that I haven't converted every single one of them or not even half of them or even 10 percent of them, I'm still very proud that I have 5 confirmed people who now have been or are now going to be consistent phyzz silver stackers, bitchez!!!

It...ain't...easy. People don't want to listen and even if they kinda do listen (as I'm sure you all know) it's even more rare that any of them actually commit a little bit or full-on like I have.

But so far.......5.

Keep trying, folks. And keep stacking. 5 out of maybe 100 I'll take. It's better than none, and I at least I know I've helped 5 people. And many others might eventually come around one day. Everyone has their path to take, and we all can make a difference in waking people up.

Have a great weekend and lets all stack some fucking Ag on Monday, bitchez!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!

I'd like to say that as of 2 days ago I have awakened and converted 5 people over these years. 5.

You're doing well. I've managed only 4 over the last decade but I sort of gave up a little while ago. I honestly just got to the stage of thinking "fuck em" because of the emotional and time investments required. I'll still point things out, but in the past if a persons retort was "but but but look at the sharzes" or something simililar I would counter that and continue to counter their counters, but now I just can't be bothered... it really does get draining - so much so that it's easier to let people think they scored a win in an argument than carry on with it.

I'd like to see the correlation between people who laugh at the idea of owning gold and the idea that 9/11 was an oligarch takeover of the government. I expect it would be in the 90's. I've had people tell me "if it's true I don't want to know." The most annoying are people who should know better - 'scientists' - who refuse to even look at the evidence. As tyler says, they're gonna get just what they deserve..

A friend of mine was trying to get a couple he knows to just store a little food. The response to his efforts? The lady actually said: "We don't need food storage because my husband and I don't eat that much."

To SuperRay, doubting a correlation between PM buyers and 9/11 truthers... WTF??? I know quite a few people IRL who both stack and _know_ 9/11 was a scam. No clue why you would think truthers and stackers aren't the same people. ???

I told my wife in our last discussion about this "gold-buying thing" that I was going to have her sign a statement saying that she had been duly informed numerous times about the very steep down-side of not having 5-15% of our stash, at the very least, in gold and silver. I said it is no absolute guarantee of anything, but it is a relatively inexpensive way to cover a lot of bases.

Talking to friends and relatives about this is kind of like that old biblical saying that a prophet is never recognized in his own home town -people think that you can't possibly know anything because you are, well, just good old Bubba, and what the hell can he possibly know that I don't know.

I'm embarassed to say that it dawned on me in 2008. I say this because I have a Finance degree and spent 2 years working for a Big 8 brokerage house (now deceased) and then 5 years as a financial analyst for a S&L bank. I should have learned earlier but like most people got absorbed with trying to chase the dying american dream. I knew Obama was a marxist and like most people really thought this country got off track after 911. The progressives have been ddestabilizing this country for the last 100 years but it was only after I read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" and found ZH that I awoke. those were my red pill moments and made me realize how much of a dumb shit I was for not seeing this sooner. Good news is that I am far along in my goals and have been preaching the gospel to friends and family. Convinced the wife , brother in law and 2 friends. Being informed and referring them to people like Griffith, Schiff, Sinclair, Maloney and Bass has helped them to see what the main stream media won't. I made my family and friends watch "end of the road" . It made a difference. Now we no longer call ourselves Republicans and realize the US is now an oligarchy. Best 5 minute video I have ever seen is George Carlins take on the "American Dream". Never saw eye to eye on most things but he was spot on

I was going to give you a down arrow until the end where you confirm to yourself, we no longer call ourselves Republicans and realize the US is now an oligarchy. You see, while you have a distaste for Bambi you do recognize he alone is not the problem, it's "big money" who runs the show. Americans vote does not matter if all don't vote. Politicians really don't want everybody to vote. Because it destroys oligarchies. It's the real voice of the masses they fear most. Our full demise is already determined because of No Campaign Reform. Big Money now owns ballot box. Big Money can now brainwash the few voters who do with unlimited dollars requardless of party. The Supreme Court had been bought out for Big Money's agenda. Journalism is Dead. Voice of the People, dead.

After 9/11, (never let a good crisis go to waste), it was the Republicans who gave us a Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, phone tapping and the longest War in U.S. history. A war that really had nothing to do with 9/11. And another War that may have had a little to do with it, Afghanistan. Think of all the money that went down that shit hole. Afghanistan is also partly reponsible for the Soviet Union's demise. In which, they are rebuilding now. While we are still pumping money in the shit hole. At least Reagan had sense enough to cut and run, but his party has been bought out by the military complex which owns them now. Yes, we are voiceless on both sides.

ive had 2. it would be three, but my dad, after probably a year of me telling him to put some money into it, did finally buy some. unfortunatly, after doing a little research and seeing how undervalued silver is relative to the dow/S&P, and the gold/silver ratio, he bought SLV, not actual silver."no one can break into my house and steal my stock portfolio, and no, im not buying a huge safe and putting it in my house" So i count him as half, so ive gotten 2.5. hopefully the old man will come all the way around one day

My experience; most don’t want to be saved; they know something is wrong but can’t be bothered to find out more. I agree trying to enlighten friends is like an impossible task, they think you have gone a little odd. Strangers are easier to persuade if they will listen. My wife is on side and I encourage my kids to do their own research, after giving them some guidance.

In the West it's hopeless. Women used to accumulate gold jewelry. Now they accumulate Silicone. A number of polls have shown that women see more value in plastic surgery than in gold. Good looks can attract rich guys, make you popular, and lead to better career options.

i give an ounce to the little ones in my family every b-day and christmas, and every dollar our family gives us for my infant son buys silver as well. he will have quite a stack by the time he is old enough for me to actually give it to him(could be 15, could be 25, just depends on his maturity level)

They're not selling their private gold, they are almost certainly adding to their private collections after each panicky midnight dumping of futures contracts. The gold their selling is western government gold - they're essentially selling their own countries into debt servitude, under widespread media complicity and government cover, and when the shit finally hits the fan and the USD is displaced as the reserve currency, THEY'RE going to be fine, and its the population at large that's going to be well and truly fucked, and its they lying duplicity that makes them the worst kind of traitors, not the fact that they're getting their own share, but that their willfully and intentionally doing it by destroying their own nominal countries.

TPTB behind the Anglo-American alliance are done with us, we've served our purpose. The globalist PTB serve no nation and do not want nations. The BRICS are presently useful to 'finally' overpower the hollowed out West which has been working to destroy itself, we're sleep walking into a planned collapse. So many indicators and warning lights complimented by many more distractions and false flag issues; a calculated perception of invincibility because most can't detect therefore grasp the real threat and so obsess about the useful distractions that are prepared for launch as the situation dictates.... planners are calculating and prepared for contingencies. Eventually it will be convenient for the pendulum to be swung the other way; but for now its our turn. if we go along with it

I have a question: if the chinese are soooo bloody smart by suddenly switching to buying gold, then why have they build all those empty cities? Why were they so stupid by having invested trillions in useless US bonds? Why do they need to fake economic statistics? Why are a lot their local companies on the verge of bankrupcy and constantly need to ne bailed out?

Trust me all you China lovers out here: the Chinese can only think INSIDE the box! All their economic experiments in the past (The Great Leap Forward") have ended in tears, and it looks like the current economic experiment (started to keep a restless population 'fat, dumb and happy' after the 1989 student uprising) will end in disaster as well. The only things the Chinese are good at is 'copy-pasting' the same successes AND mistakes that we make in the West as vitrually nobody in China is able to think for themselves.

The second point I'd like to make is the so called Middle Eastern 'demand' for gold. Anyone who has ever been to a Middle Eastern gold Zouk knows that most buyers AND sellers are Indians. When I was in DXB (Dubai airport) about one month ago and I wanted to buy a 1 TrOz Nugget, they were going to charge me $200 (!) over spot as a commission. When I explained to the sales lady that I only pay roughly €60 ($80) over spot here in Europe, she just shrugged. I used to buy gold coins in DXB many years ago, but since the Indian import taxes and resrictions, premiums in DXB have gone through the roof.

The Chinese we see here are the cream: grad students and their off spring. Even they are not all that brilliant. I worked for two Chinese (PhD, and MS in engineering). They worked hard when it counted, but could not plan for shit. They admitted as much and made jokes about it.

They government made all of the big decisions for them early in their adult years.

Exactly Fred, that's my experience as well when in China. I work in the airline industry and despite a HUGE amount of infrastructure (runways, terminals etc) the Chinese can only handle a fraction of the capacity that we can deal with here in the West. The bureaucracy is enormous, the wastage is even bigger yet nobody offers any constructive critisism on how to improve things because that would mean "loss of face" for the people in charge.

Unlike what most China/Asia bulls like Jim Rogers and Peter Schiff tout, there is NO entrepreneurial atmosphere in Asia in general, let alone in a communist planned economy like China. People get educated in a system that sees faillure as a loss of face, so people just stick to what's safe and don't stray outside the white lines. (except when driving, because they can't drive!)

People are like numb slaves (from the taxi drivers to the hotel receptionists, to the airport managers), capable only of following orders from above, and those people with real decision power have no long term planning or interests, except for filling their own pockets and transfering their assets abroad a.s.a.p.

Yeh, I help these people build their business from 8 to over 30 before getting frustrated and quitting. The whole "face" thing was very hard for me to figure out until near the end. Holy shit, the driving! Think about it. We learn to drive at 15 to 16 or eaven earlier if you grew up in the country on a farm or something. My old bosses arrived in the US when they were in their 30's. Kind of like there is an optimum "window" to learn a language, there is also one for learning to drive. These people would just stop in the middle of the raod of they got confused.

You know the people who will just stop on a busy sidewalk or in a crowded mall and not think to get out of the way? Well these people do it on the roadway in a car.

"You know the people who will just stop on a busy sidewalk or in a crowded mall and not think to get out of the way? Well these people do it on the roadway in a car."

Hahaha! True! I've seen it on a 6 lane highway in Shanghai! A person missed the exit, so they just stop in the outer left lane, pull into reverse, and back up. And all that during rush hour of course!

Have you also noticed how they are not able to maintain an intermediate throttle setting and drive a constant speed? In my company we call them "digital drivers" because you get gently rocked back and forth by the constant varying the throttle between on and off.

When there is any air disaster (Asiana crash in San Fransisco or more recently the disappearance of MH370) or a ferry that sinks in Korea, you see a perfect example of the Asian culture at work: complete gridlock and 'deer caught in headlights' panic. Lot's of generals with lot's of stripes and decorations, lot's of important looking people, yet none of them are able to plan a piss up in a brewery. Asians can not deal with ANYTHING that is outside the box, i.e. something that has not been planned, regulated or preconceived, so I really really really do not see how they will come out on top if there is any major economic collapse or systemic breakdown.

Good point ltsgt1, that the Roman collapse came from within, but did we see the Germanic, Celtic or Nordic tribes immediately take over from the Romans as their empire collapsed? Nope.

What followed was a looong void, the Dark Ages, The Crusades, the Plague and it wasn't until >1000 years later, during the European Renaissance and Enlightenment that some of Rome's competitors started to make a name for themselves in the form of the English, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the French colonial empires.

Nevertheless, it was the remnants of the former Roman empire like Venice, Lombardia, Genoa and Florence that still had a large power basis, great intellectual and artistic talent (Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Marco Polo etc) and enormeous wealth and were able to greatly influence the world (Columbus, and again Marco Polo) in which we live today.

Maybe the present USA empire will also 'downsize' but with remnant areas of wealth and commercial creativity like New York and Silicon Valley. It never goes up in a straight line, but neither does it go down in a straight line. Look at the former Sovjet Union. It collapsed, recuperated and is now in the process of regrouping.

There was an article on ZH a few months ago explaining how China accumulated so much gold in such a short period of time without sending the spot price to the moon. The long and short of it is that the "big boys" (primarily central banks) are moving a TREMENDOUS amount of gold west to east without affecting the spot price at all. Their transactions are NOT done on any market, and the currency effects are offset with derivative products.

Gold has been, and will be, nothing but dead money for years compared to BTC. Down vote me all you guys want, it's fact as of yet.

BTC is bottoming here, the massive wedge has resolved strongly to the upside, the news and developments coming out of the ecosystem are ultra-bullish.

If you have a nice "insurance policy" already it could well be an opportunity to actually increase your wealth instead of investing exclusively in the most manipulated and controlled elements on earth at this time.

With copper mining / production grinding to a half due to copper's recent price drops, the main byproduct of copper mining, silver, will also see diminishing supplies. With record sales of ASE's at the US Mint vs declining silver production, something has to give.

Gee you guys telling me that most of the gold went to the 2 countries that make up the bulk of the world population? Specifically now that those same people have money? Wonder of fucking wonders.... Who bought the most pork? Rice? Holy shit, the same people?!!! It's the end of the world~!!!

Right now they're still pretending that the USD has some value - see how you feel about our banker masters essentially giving away our reserves for their private benefit when India and China call start the shots on what constitutes valid payment for oil.

I really like gold. No, seriously, there's something about it that feels comforting, just knowing you have some. I'm not saying take out a loan to buy it, don't even buy it retail. With prices feeling so low now, a lot of people aren't careful. You can get a surprising amount of 14k, 18k jewelry for next to nothing at yard sales...

It's not gonna get you through the apocalypse or a Mad Max scenario. If things get THAT bad that gold will get you killed before it buys you anything. Don't even let anyone know you HAVE it unless you're 250 pounds of mutant muscle with a gun.

But if things get 'hinky' but are still functioning in some way, small amounts of gold might be the key to some kind of liquidity...enough to get you what you need. It has had fairly stable value over many centuries and many economies. It is the only thing, other than silver, that has been able to segue between economies with relative ease.

It kind of frosts me that there seems to be an organized effort to demean and denigrate gold. In favor of what? Well, their various paper of course! Fiat, certificates, derivatives on every fucking thing under the sun. Here's what I think. I think TPTB are afraid that people will go to gold as a safe haven (as they have done historically) thus exposing the weaknesses and true worthlessness of their paper. If gold prices start spiking, it sets off alarm bells. So they have to keep it low so people only see value in the paper markets. They make it seem like the physical gold holders are a fringe group of prepper-types who bury it in coffee cans in their backyard. They see gold, and it's unquestioned value and history, as an affront to their little created world of bubbles where THEY determine value, not the market.

You know Dochen, I've really come to realize I am among friends when so many have given me such good advice how to effectively kill myself. ;-)

(Raising my glass of Glenlivet) To ZH, Dear Friends and Scotch. Thanks for so many years being in your company. I am so happy to have found knowledge, laughter and clarity from the eccentric, rugged individuals that grace these threads. It is truly an honor.

Actually, I have really turned him on to it. However, he does seem to have a definite preference to carnal over intellectual pursuits. Claims it's medicinal. I have asked for the scientific references to this assertion and they are always forthcoming. I'm starting to wonder if I have,yet again, been duped.

Curiosity: far as I can tell all sorts of credit is revolving & unsecured, so just wondering, if one had it & used it, didn't pay it, there's only potential hits to one's credit, right? So let's say perhaps some gold, silver & a poorly maintained used canoe with a ZH carved into it were purchased, and no payment was made, just how sweet would that have to be to justify the change to the credit score? I don't even use credit so for me to do that even once & return to my life of "I don't use credit" would pretty much make me frown like a cheshire cat.

Jewelery is China is not really as we think of it here in the USA. It is purchased with a keen eye to weight and putiry. It is often sold by the gram in China and there maybe a mark up if it is exceptionally well done. Mostly these sales can be viewed as bullion gold for savings purposes. Of course that is not the message we are supposed to hear. We are supposed to hear: 'oh those crazy Chinese and Indians, they blow all their dough on earings and necklaces...how imprudent.'

Details of this story are lengthly and contain plausible conjecture (see links below);nevertheless, its ability to integrate otherwise incongruous events is appealing.This is the condensed version...

Since paper currency had little value to Bedouin desert nomads, Saudi Arabia has historically requested to be paid (fully or partly) with gold in exchange for oil.Before entering World War II, America was paid in gold for war goods and subsequently held vast amounts after the war.So it was not considered a big deal to provide $35/Oz gold for oil from the 1940s until early 1970s.In 1971 however, the general lack of gold caused Nixon to close the "gold window", that is, the dollar was removed as a stand-in for gold.Since major Western currencies (including Japan's) were tied to the dollar, that meant that all Western currencies have been floating since 1971.The USA subsequently entered into an agreement with the Saudi government which stated that in exchange for cheap oil,there would be implicit military protection provided by the USA and gold, albeit a smaller amount, would be provided with dollars in exchange for oil.

Unfortunately, there was little gold to be had in 1971, but there was also great optimism about mining technology.So agreements were established that provided the Saudi government with third-party gold while third-parties were guaranteed physical gold from future mine production.Gold prices rose over the ensuing decades, but in 1979, the price of gold went from ~$300/Oz to ~$700/Oz within a year and settled back into $300 range until the turn of the century.Gold mining production also jumped from the 1970s through 2000 roughly doubling the amount of world-wide gold that existed before 1970.

Decades later, in 1997, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) for the first time released its bullion trading activity and it shook the trading markets to see a high volume of gold traded daily.From 1997 through 2011 the price of gold rose until it reached $1,800 per ounce as the markets traded more and more gold.

Meanwhile, Western governments continued to engender (create through fractional reserve lending and outright printing) more and more paper currency over the decades.For example, the USA M3 dollar currency supply doubled five times since the 1970s (see table below) and US public/private debt expanded from $1 trillion in 1964 to $57 trillion in 2013, an increase by a factor of 50.All things being equal, as the amount of paper currency continued to increase the price of gold should also have increased in a similar fashion each time the amount of currency doubled.Even though the supply of gold has doubled since 1970, if one simply compares the ratio of dollars/debt to gold in 1970 and again in 2013, a comparable gold price would be ~$55,000/Oz.But the price of gold has not increase because it is in the interest of the US and other Western governments to suppress the price of precious metals tocontinue the illusion of sound money as the Western population become poorer and poorer at ~5%/year.

Nevertheless, price inflation is not the core problem.A financial collapse can be triggered simply by the lack of gold!Gold payments to Arab countries for oil continued from the 1970s and mining supply helped to keep pace with the need for gold until Asian demand entered the picture over the last decade.Western governments are now caught between a rock and hard place.They have to continue to suppress the price of gold, yet poor currency value means that miners are losing money producing gold at spot prices, and worse yet,there are fewer and fewer viable mines with less and less gold content driving up production cost and reducing yield.

As a result of record world-wide physical gold demand, physical gold shortage indicators are appearing.Banks are refusing to provide customers with their allocated gold; when gold is provided it is not the same gold that was stored (wrong serial numbers);gold reserves at the COMEX and LBMA have dropped to historic low levels;Bank of England shipped tons of gold from its vault in late 2013;and there are rumors that Saudi gold stock is used to supply Asian demand until future mine production can replace it.In fact, the consequences of collapse are so terrible that it would not be a surprise to learn that Arab gold stocks have been re-cycled to purchase Arab oil.

So all that is required for a financial crisis is for someone, somewhere, to request enough physical gold that others will not backstop the request and the system collapses.Why would someone request enough physical gold to trigger a collapse? Because gold's spot price is ~$1,300/Oz but its true value is ~$55,000/Oz.It is in everyone's interest to keep the system going, but at what point will the risk be too great to backstop a request for physical gold?

This is what Jon Kirby predicts, that this whole thing collapses when the Asians do no there get physical gold. We already know that was is coming out of the vaults is old reserves, i suspect this wont last much longer when India are expected to ramp up there official buying after the May elections. Other central banks are getting involved too.

I think when that moment arrive. The BRICS and other developing nations will create a new banking system similar to the IMF and BIS. The only difference is that trade deficits within that new system will be settled in PMs at the end of the year. Fiat will be just a temporary marker to keep the score.

If the IMF & BIS don't follow or make the change first, they will become obsolete with a 100% fiat back Ponzi scheme.

Some BS stats from the Ministry of Trade in India claimed gold imports were down something like 77% year over year. Of course, the Ministry of Trade also is responsible for releasing trade deficit numbers, which showed about a $10 billion deficit for April. India is trying to cut that deficit, so the numbers on gold look a bit suspicious. And as with all government actions, once India raised the import duty on gold, the amount of 'official imports' was destined to drop while the amount of 'unofficial' imports was destined to rise - and not be reported.

No shit there, the short term feels more like long term when one longs for at least, some semblance of the real price of metals. Then again, I here over and over don't worry about the paper price, and while this is true it gets real fucking old.

You may or may not like them, and you may make fun of them, but you aren't going to beat them.

I guarantee that nobody reading this is going to beat 1 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians who like gold. They are making the right move, whether they know it or not.

Strange but true. All things change in time! Everybody should think back to 1999-2000. Think of everything that has happened since then. If you went back and told anyone what would happen, they would label you a raving lunatic let alone a doomer or pessimist.

If anyone is still trying to make up excuses against PMs at this point I don't even know why you're here... Time tested Value. Totally Secret if you want to be. Doesn't Age. Clearly is MisPriced in bad markets. Protests the government. What's there to question here? Who cares what the bogus paper price is? Stack the bloody silver!

This number makes me laugh. 1120 tons is the amount China imported from Hongkong alone. So we have to assume that China does not import from anwhere else and it does not porduce any gold either. Is that true?

What you cannot understand is that we are living the world of The Truman Show. If you could picture yourself buying stocks, real estate or gold in that world, the prices are all made up by props associates and barely have much fundamentals related to a specific item.

The big boys haven't had to earn their money since 2009. Money was created out of thin air every single month and was given to these TBTF. Their only responsibility is to foster economic growth. However, this economic malaise is not cyclical nut structural. On top of this structural malaise, the US government is paving way for a socialist paradise which makes an almost impossible recovery absolutely impossible.

Under the current environment, what can these TBTF banks do? They created an appearance which is indicative of an economic recovery with trillion of funny money which was bestowed on them regardless of the fundamentals. What I'm trying to say is that, other than food and energy, price discovery in the free market is smothered for now but not dead. True prices of PMs will be revealed at the end of the yellow brick road.

But, y'know, about silver specifically, I just did the math and ... so say you sell your house for $250,000, convert it to silver, then stuff it in a knapsack along with some survival goods and hit the road on foot, just you and your dog.

It's a nice story, the problem being that much silver weighs about 781 pounds and in rounds would take up about 1.5 cubic feet. And you still want to bring along a small can of polish.

Anyone who rails ZH is Full Retard. I've never seen them recommend putting all your eggs in a PM portfolio.

Be responsible for your own stupid actions. I've bought PM's twice in this old life of mine. Both times people looked at me like I was nutz, in fact I may be, but fuck u. 1999/2000= Gold $300 stackin Panda's bitch over a kilo and the last 8 months I'm stacking again little at a time. I unfortunately had to pay for a wedding in late 2000 and blew my wad. Stupid? NO, only have one daughter, and I'm a fucking trash man...

I think the point I was trying to make (and I'm trying to figure out some of this stuff too) is that silver isn't a very good store of value compared to gold. So I'd have to say that silver only is considered a good store of value as a backup to gold, sort of by courtesy of gold. So that if gold is weak, silver is likely to be weaker. Which is pretty much what we've been seeing.

OTOH I suppose this is also an opportunity, for if (and when!) gold ever gets strong again, silver will probably get strong too, and may actually be the more volatile - so if it's cheap now, it will improve even more than gold! The multiplier would go down. So if gold doubled from here, silver might triple, and then at least the 781 pounds would go down to just 260!

I guess what it comes to is if you want to speculate on silver and you're talking six figures or more, it might be better done not with the physical metal.

--

btw this is just considering the two metals as economic tools. as physical metals it's just too bad they are so expensive, as almost anywhere we use copper today we'd rather use silver or gold, and except for these monetary uses I'm guessing both metals *would* be much cheaper. Well, mostly gold, I keep hearing that silver is already down around the cost of extraction, and maybe that's true, and of course the high price of gold is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it justifies mining even the smallest traces that would otherwise be ignored.